Canon
by champagne-and-razor-blades
Summary: "Canon: A musical form where the melody or tune is imitated by individual parts at regular intervals." My little collection of songfics. Chapter one: She, by Parachute. Feel free to suggest songs.
1. Chapter 1

I was listening to the song She by Parachute and it occured to me that this was probably how Castle was feeling towards the end of Season Two.

* * *

_As I'm waiting there, _

_The devil on my shoulder stares _

_Laughing that the one thing I can't get_

_ Is what I need_

She is so unobtainable; maybe that was part of why he finds her so appealing. She's so close but so far away at the same time - giving out tastes of what it would be like to be with her then backing off, watching him stutter, flounder, drown in his enthusiasm.

He's never had difficulties with getting women. With a few exceptions, they have always been the ones to chase him. All he has to do is sit there, write a few books and look pretty, and for some reason, they come flocking. They still come flocking, but he always thinks twice about accepting their offers for drinks and dances. Even if he succumbs to the temptation, _she_ is always there in the back of his mind, rolling her eyes, muttering a comment under her breath with that sarcastic smile that he loves.

She is too smart for him, he decides. Too smart and not shallow enough to only judge him on appearance; somehow, he knows that she sees more to him than just what's on the surface - although most of the time, she doesn't mention it - and it makes him uneasy.

Castle doesn't know when it happened, but somewhere between morning coffees and undercover gunfights, she started being everything he wants.

_She is the words that I can't find_

_ How can the only thing that's killing me make me feel so alive_

_ And I couldn't speak_

_ I couldn't breathe to save my life_

Even though he has books written about her, pages of his feelings for her loosely disguised as fiction, a lot of the time, he has trouble finding ways to describe her. Similies, metaphors, mere adjectives; they don't cut it. Someone needs to invent new words purely for the description of Kate Beckett.

(Sometimes when he's writing, he writes "Castle" and "Beckett" instead of their fictional counterparts and has to edit it out later.)

He has reverted back to the schoolboy crush, fumbling with words, stuttering, finding it difficult to tear his gaze away from her face, even when she's doing something as ordinary as paperwork, like she is right now.

_All of my chances swim like sinking ships_

_ This time is it; I'll drown or make her mine_

Does she know? She has to know how beautiful she is. It's impossible for someone to be that attractive and totally unaware of it. After all, there were men chasing after her wherever she went, and as much as he didn't want to recognize it, Castle knew he was one of many. One of many men who had fallen for Beckett.

She runs a hand through her hair, and he watches as the auburn strands catch the unnatural light of the precinct before falling back into place. He'd love to do that; god, he'd _love_ to do that, run his fingers through her hair. It would feel like catching sunlight between his fingers.

Maybe one day. It's not like she dislikes him, and perhaps he's deluding himself, but they've been getting a lot closer lately. So maybe he has a chance? Maybe he doesn't? He'll find out.

He's going to the Hamptons in a few weeks- he could ask her? If she shoots him down, like she probably will, he can laugh, crack a joke, and they can forget about it.

_My vocal chords have been fighting _

_My mouth likes to spite me _

_It never says the words that come to mind_

"You okay, Castle? You seem a little- out of it?" her voice shatters his train of thought like a bullet through a pane of glass. Beckett's eyes are on him all of a sudden, that brown-gold-green colour melting into mild concern (the color of her eyes. That's another word he doesn't know.)

He opens his mouth, but what can he _say_? The truth is going to get him slapped.

"Fine, fine. Just tired."

She looks like she doesn't quite believe him, as if she wants to say something else, but then she presses the seam of her lips shut and turns her attention back to the last few pages scattered on the desk in front of her.

"Come out for a drink," he says, out of the blue, the words surprising him. "It's been a hard case."

He expects "No thank you" or "I'm tired" or "I'm sorry but I have somewhere else to be", possibly a polite combination of the three, but instead he gets a small smile aimed at him.

"You know what, Castle? I might just take you up on that." _She might just take him up on that._ He has to stop his own smile from stretching all the way across his face.

_I brought a stick to a gun fight _

_And I'm stuck with my tongue tied_

_ I run but I can't hide what's always there_

Castle wonders, as they leave the precinct together, if she has any idea about the extent of his feelings for her. Maybe she thinks he's how he was at the beginning, when they met; only wanting to get her into bed. He doesn't only want that now. Well, he wants that, but he also wants to wake up next to her in the morning.

It occurs to him that he really has no idea what he's doing; he's playing cop, putting himself in the line of fire, for a woman. An extraordinary woman, but still a woman.

Is it for the books? Partially, but the part of it that is 'research' is steadily shrinking compared to the part of it that is 'a mostly hopeless search for romance'.

He really doesn't know what to do. He could leave? No, he couldn't. The idea of Beckett going around without him, being hit on and put in danger - not that he does much to remedy either of those factors, but he likes to think that he tries - is too horrible.

He's staying with her, even if they're not really getting anywhere.

For now, Beckett laughing at his jokes in the elevator is enough.


	2. Chapter 2

"The one that got away" by Katy Perry. This is set in an AU after Headhunters.

* * *

Kate Beckett is thinking in a constant stream of what ifs.

What if she'd told Castle she remembered? What if he hadn't left? What if she'd just told him how she felt? What if she'd opened that door in LA? What if her mom hadn't been shot?

And each one of them hurts more than the last, because, she realises, every last possibility she had been considering had _something _to do with Richard Castle. Even her mom's murder, which was the most private thing she had. He's in that. He's in **all** of it.

She can't bring herself to refer to him in past tense, because he's still there. He is alive, his heart is beating, but it's beating away from hers.

He just left. He left her, he left them.

* * *

_( Beckett sees him packing the things up from her desk, pulling open the draw and scooping the contents that belong to him into his bag. They clatter inside with a broken symphony of things that don't matter to him any more. She fits into that catergory. She's resigned herself to that._

_"Cas- Rick, what are you doing?"  
_

_"I'm leaving."  
_

_"Y-what?" she chokes on words, her brain clenching itself into a tight, unforgiving fist around that thought. He's leaving.  
_

_"Yeah, I have... enough research for the Nikki Heat books. I think I had enough research a while ago, actually." Castle's tone of voice is very deliberately, painfully pleasant, but she sees that look in his eyes, a glimpse of pure **hurting** that she knows is only the tip of the iceburg. Is that her fault? Did she do that to him?_

_He's like a wounded animal, when he gets that expression on his face. He lashes out at anyone who tries to help, refuses to be looked after, and all he seems to want to do is slink off to lick his wounds in private.  
_

_"You're just- you're going?" He wants to leave, and all she wants him to do is stay, stay forever. She doesn't care what she has to do to heal him, she'll quit her job, throw down her badge on the captain's desk, if only he'll stop looking at her like she's the one ending them. Beckett wants lazy mornings cooking breakfast together and being woken up in the middle of the night when one of their kids has a nightmare, and- Castle, Castle, you said **always.)**_

* * *

**In another life,**_  
_

**I would be your girl.  
**

**We'd keep all our promises;  
**

**Be us against the world.  
**

Beckett knows that only one and a half of the what-ifs were unpreventable by her. Her mom's murder? She couldn't fix that. And she knows that somehow, somehow, Castle leaving the precinct was her fault, but how was she meant to fix it before it started if she never knew what she was doing wrong?

She knows now; he didn't tell her. She doesn't think he knows that she knows.

But she'd been lying awake in bed, re-playing the days before he started to pull away over and over in her head, and then it clicked. The coffee on her desk. Her interrogation. _... And I remember every second of it._

She should have told him, but she didn't know how.

But maybe if she'd acted on one of the other what-ifs, she wouldn't have needed to.

If she hadn't left the hotel room in LA, if she'd leaned forward, grabbed him by the collar and kissed him like she meant it, then Beckett had almost no doubt they would be together by now. She would have baulked at first, of course. She would have freaked. Gotten angry. Gone back home to Josh as soon as she could.

But then she would have broken up with him, and eventually, she and Rick would have made it right. More than right. Perfect. It had been a year since LA. God, a whole year, so many what ifs. They could be engaged. Hell, she could be pregnant with his kid. If only if only if only-

* * *

_("Yeah, probably to the Hamptons. I'll finish this Nikki Heat book, wrap it up. I think there's... only so far I can go with Nikki and Rook." her eyes sting. She actually has to swallow, hard. His words flow through her like water and are threatening to stream out her eyes.  
_

_"I..." there are so many ways she could finish the sentence. I love you. I'll miss you. I love you. I want you to stay. I love you. I'm sorry. I want to try and fix this. No matter what she says, he's already gone. She's not going to baring her heart only to have him shoot another arrow through it. "I thought you'd stay around longer."  
_

_They pause, and the silence is heavy on her already weighted shoulders.  
_

_"So did I," he murmurs, soft, and for a moment there's a glimpse of the Castle she knows so well, only this is a Castle broken beyond any hope of repair.)_

* * *

**In another life, **

**I would make you stay,  
**

**So I won't have to say you were  
**

**The one that got away.  
**

Beckett knows, looking back on it, that she should have tried harder, just a bit harder. She should have done _something. _Told him she loves him - because that is still very much present tense - given him a piece of truth to patch up the wounds her lies had inflicted on him.

But at the time, she hadn't known what had caused those wounds, just that they were there.

She had just thought that he hadn't cared.

Hell, she would willingly go back in time, get down on one knee and propose to him in the middle of the precinct if that would keep him there. Too late now. That's just another what if with infinite possible endings.

He has retired from his writing career.

The general public seems to believe it's because they broke up, which they did, but at the same time they _didn't, _because they never even got a chance to begin before it was all over. Beckett doesn't know what happened to his _always._ She thinks maybe his always expired the same time his I love you did.

Maybe he's the same as her, though, in that he doesn't appear to have a muse any more. If writing holds the same disinterest for him as her job now does for her, at least that brings her some sort of closure, that he's hurting as well. Because if they're equal, it takes the edge off the pain.

**It's time to face the music, I'm no longer your muse.**

She isn't chasing after anyone else. The phrase 'one-and-done' keeps echoing in the back of her mind, and she recognises that if he really was the one, she's done now. It's not really that bad. No one compares to Castle, anyway; no one ever has, for as long as she's known him.

She's going to spend every night for a long, long time sitting up and wondering.

**In another life...**


End file.
